First of all, Quentin, just like Pagan, is entering his final arbitration year which means (barring an ill advised contract extension) he will be a member of the Mets for exactly 1 year. He is not a long term solution and his production would have to represent a substatial upgrade in order to justify making the move. As mentioned in the article, Quentin is going to make more money than Pagan next year, probably about $2 million more. Also, just because the White Sox want to trade him or are “likely” to trade him doesn’t mean they will give him up for free. This means that the Mets will have to stretch an already tight payroll to fit him in AND give up potentially useful pieces AND let a decent player in Pagan walk away for nothing. Finally, and most importantly, Quentin for Pagan which is bascially what this is, isn’t much of an upgrade. By my quick calculations, assuming both Pagan and Quentin repeat their 2011 offensive numbers, this would represent a difference of about 20-30 runs over 600 plate appearances. However there’s a pretty good chance that all of this 20-30 run improvement would be cancelled out when defense, baserunning, and regression are factored in. Pagan’s a decent bet to rebound next year on both sides of the ball and the Mets would be significantly downgrading their defense at two positions. Even in the absolute best case scenario, the Mets would only be improving by a couple of wins which isn’t much when you have a mediocre team that is unlikely to contend. There’s no need to do anything drastic here. Just keep the outfield alignment the way it is (while looking for a possible upgrade for Bay) and wait until after 2012 when the market for outfielders will likely be much stronger and the Mets chances of contending will hopefully be better.